The real cost of seven tools

Ask a finance head at a 100-person services firm how many systems hold the employee list, and the answer is rarely one. There’s the HR and payroll tool, the timesheet tool, the expense tool, the helpdesk, the review tool and the recognition tool. Then the month’s journals go to Tally in a spreadsheet, and the CA re-types what doesn’t line up.

That’s seven places where a person’s name, department, manager and salary can be different. This post puts a number on it.

What the licences cost

We priced the cheapest sensible stack of separate tools for an Indian IT services firm, using each vendor’s published prices as checked on 15 October 2026. Prices are before GST, on annual billing where it’s offered, shown as a monthly figure. US dollar prices are converted at ₹95.

What, and the plan we priced	100 staff, a month	500 staff, a month
HR and payroll: greytHR Growth	₹8,745	₹42,745
Accounting: Zoho Books Professional	₹1,499	₹1,949
Expenses: Zoho Expense Standard, all staff	₹7,900	₹39,500
Helpdesk: Zoho Desk Standard, 3 or 8 agents	₹2,400	₹6,400
Recognition: Vantage Circle (third-party price)	₹2,500	₹12,500
Performance: Synergita Perform	₹5,000	₹25,000
Timesheets: Clockify Standard	₹52,155	₹2,60,775
Total	₹80,199	₹3,88,869
Per employee	₹802	₹778

The timesheet tool is about two-thirds of that bill, because the cheapest standalone tool with approvals is priced in dollars. If you swap it, the review tool and the expense tool for greytHR’s own add-ons, the total falls to about ₹256 per employee at 100 staff and ₹232 at 500.

So the honest range is about ₹230 to ₹800 per employee a month, depending on how you buy. Pick global brands instead and it’s closer to ₹3,300.

What the licences leave out

The table is the smaller part of the cost. It doesn’t count:

• Set-up fees. Some vendors charge one, and at least one expense tool charges extra to link to your HR tool.
• The joins. Every tool needs the same people, departments and managers. Someone keeps them in step by hand or pays for an integration that breaks when a field changes.
• The month-end. Payroll and expenses have to become journal entries. In most firms that means an export, a spreadsheet and a person re-typing it into Tally.
• The year-end. Form 130 (was Form 16), the quarterly TDS returns, the tax audit and the company’s ITR-6 all draw on numbers that started in the HR tool. When the tools disagree, your CA’s hours go up.
• GST and forex. Indian invoices carry 18% GST, usually claimed back but paid first. Dollar-priced tools add a card or forex mark-up.

Why one employee record matters

The fix isn’t another integration. It’s keeping the employee once.

When the timesheet, the payroll, the expense claim and the ledger all read the same record, three things change:

1. Nothing is re-typed. An approved timesheet feeds payroll. Payroll, statutory deposits and expense claims post into the books by themselves.
2. The numbers agree by design. The salary in the payslip is the salary in the ledger, because it’s the same entry.
3. The year-end comes from what’s already there. Form 130, Schedule III, the tax audit and the ITR-6 are prepared from posted entries, not rebuilt from exports.

That’s what we built Dexta to do: time, HR, payroll, expenses and the books from one employee record, on our cloud in India or on your own server.

How to work out your own number

Count three things for last month:

1. What you paid every vendor, per employee, after GST you can’t claim back.
2. The hours HR and finance spent exporting, matching and re-typing between tools.
3. What your CA billed for work that came from mismatched numbers.

Add them up and divide by your headcount. The second and third lines are the ones that rarely make it onto paper.

Prices are vendors’ published prices as checked on 15 October 2026 and will change. The recognition price is from a reseller because the vendor doesn’t publish one.